Stump
A Fierce Pancake

25 years ago, when the Internet and YouTube were pure science fiction, I relied essentially on reading reviews in those few reliable music magazines I used to buy. Sometimes the conviction was such as to lead me to buy the record blindly, a risky solution but almost always a winning one. In other cases, fate would offer me the opportunity to listen before purchasing on a silver platter.

It only took a dinner invitation from a Puglian friend specialized in preparing orecchiette with turnip tops that could revive the dead: clearly, I was in charge of the music, and rummaging through her tapes, a C-90 with only six tracks surfaced. Someone had recorded QUIRK OUT for her, the Mini-LP by STUMP that had been released just a few months earlier and of which I vividly remembered an exciting review in Rockerilla. By the second track, the attendees raised the white flag and quickly resorted to a more reassuring Smiths tape, but by the end of the evening, I went home with the evidence, to which I never added anything and which for a long time became the soundtrack of my daily life, based on bike rides and a Walkman, with the Rewind button always ready when the sixth track slipped away. 

At that point, both Quirk Out and the previous E.P. MUD ON A COLON became very friendly with my turntable. What had strongly struck me about the band was the absolute originality of the sound: a pyrotechnic rhythm section driven by a bass with the quirkiest flourishes, supported by drumming with a thousand changes almost to further highlight the dissonance. An extremely versatile guitar work always finding the right riff without ever sparing shrill distortions, combined with a masterful use of samples to outline a Wall of Sound in which an ironic and ingenious vocalist sprinkles never banal melodic lines, to hum and, when needed, scream at the top of your lungs.

The quartet seemed destined to become one of the Big Things on the London indie scene for a brief period. The singer MICK LYNCH and the drummer ROB McKAHEY were just two of the many Irish squatter musicians looking for fortune, and the band initially gained credit in this community, to the point of securing a contract with ENSIGN, a totally Irish CHRYSALIS subsidiary, ready to launch people like SINEAD O'CONNOR into the pop firmament.

An ingenious idea was conceived for the recordings of the first real album: working at the Hansa Studios in Berlin in the company of HOLGER HILLER, a cult figure of the Neue Deutsche Welle and a great experimenter with his PALAIS SCHAUMBURG. From the start, the affair proved not without obstacles. Expectations were high, creating tensions with the producer, despite the high level of compositions and studio ideas galore. Upon returning, Ensign's executives decided to revisit everything with another producer, JOHN ROBIE, relations further soured up to the point of creating rifts even within the group, leading to the final compromise, the arrival of expert HUGH JONES, already the architect of Quirk Out: with his Post-Production and remix work, he saved the album from total disaster. 

A FIERCE PANCAKE finally came out in late ’88 and oozes wonders and vitality from every pore, starting with the two singles: the high-seas disorder of CHAOS in the captain's perversions up to a rebellious chorus of sailors, MUTINY! MUTINY!, scornful rage in a rhythmic whirlwind, accompanied by creaking samples to emulate the wooden mutiny of the vessel. Conversely, the Country&Western mockery of the Hollywood star drags CHARLTON HESTON into a ramshackle ballad between the serious and the jocular. (Watch both videos on YouTube!!!).

The rest of the album is no less, confirming the blend of Captain Beefheart, Brand X and XTC, and producing an abundance of strange-pop jewels: disoriented verses alternate with refrains of unusual and splendid melodic flair, in the case of IN THE GREEN and in the dream-nightmare of ROLL THE BODIES OVER. The lysergic nursery rhyme of EAGER BEREAVER will have made the few hairs on Andy Partridge's head stand on end, while what doesn’t rise is the problematic Proto-Viagra of the protagonist in DOCTOR (a Visit To The). Worthy of mention are also the Creepy-Progressive elements of the Title Track, featuring ominous female samples and an impressive performance by bassist KEV HOPPER, a sort of out-of-his-mind PERCY JONES, eventually duetting with guitarist CHRIS SALMON in the 100 meters of BOGGY HOME, suitably placed at the end, in the four-way race of who gets there first.

The quartet's only fault was not resembling any other band of those years; I could cite the CARDIACS as a distant term of comparison, and they survived by being completely independent. With the album's lack of success, Stump disappeared after giving a resounding raspberry to everyone, to Ensign and to O'Connor, but also to the Baggy Scene of Madchester and the Shoegazing movement, which they never wanted to belong to.

Among the thousand transformations of '80s English pop, these four madmen were the only TROUT MASK REPLICANTS.